


pink in the night

by organickill



Series: hybrid moments [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Inspired by a Mitski Song, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Pining Ash Lynx, Title from a Mitski Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28567446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/organickill/pseuds/organickill
Summary: Lately, Ash finds himself glowing.
Relationships: Ash Lynx & Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Series: hybrid moments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2093139
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	pink in the night

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, inspired by Mitski's "Pink in the Night." I recently finished the manga and I have too many feelings about these two not to write something short for them. I'm a pretty casual fan so this doesn't take place anywhere particular in the series. Enjoy ^_^

Lately, Ash finds himself glowing.

That’s how it feels, anyway - when he is alone, and thinking things over. He doesn't mean to do it, either. It is decidedly unlike him to glow. Stars glow; fireflies glow. Killers don't. And yet here he is, pink in the night, sitting on the bed that he now shares with Eiji, who is asleep already. The light seeping from him is shamefully loud. He isn’t used to longing like this, every inch of his body flustered and white-hot, slowly thawing over - but he thinks it makes him more human. He thinks it’s something like redemption. One day, when Eiji is back in Japan and Ash only has the memories of him to make dirty with his hands, he’ll be glad for what he had here, in this moment - the feeling of being swallowed whole by something that he allowed to grow in the first place; the prettiest wound.

*

When he thinks he's going to fall asleep, he wonders what he'll dream of. Maybe it'll be Dino. Maybe something worse - how the roughest hands feel; how the scars form, and quiet, only to continue to seethe. How he always imagined Iraq. Or Izumo. How the streets pulse at night. How the sun rises. How the snow melts. How everything comes running back to him without having to be called. How it retreats, finally.

*

How Eiji had kissed him the first time - not on the mouth, but against the curve of his neck. After that, the underside of his jaw. Then, clumsily, tentatively, the corner of his lips, which had then been curved into a small frown. "I'm sorry," Eiji had said, reading his expression - even though it was Ash who had everything to be sorry for; Ash who had put the gun in his hand; Ash who, then, touched him, and leaned in.

Now, Ash watches Eiji's body rise and fall again. And again. He's grown accustomed to watching like this - at least in the past week, when everything's seemed heavier - like it's the only way to have him without tainting him. Sometimes Eiji will turn toward him, blindly reach out, and in the morning the two will wake with their arms around the other’s body; but not tonight. Tonight they are both still, and Ash feels helpless again - because somewhere, swelling, there is that glowing feeling again, as persistent as it is subtly afraid. He doesn’t know what it is exactly. Sometimes he thinks it’s his heart breaking.

He doesn’t know what to do about it. What is there to do? Every time he convinces himself that there’s no hope left for him, Eiji manages to prove him wrong. He says something like _I’ll always be here_ and Ash considers himself an overgrown child, unable to express what he is feeling, only wanting to retreat into himself and to cry softly. Then Eiji does something like kiss the back of his hands - his terrible, stupid fucking hands - knuckle by knuckle - and Ash looks away, refusing the tenderness he knows he wants.

But sometimes it’s not like this. Sometimes it’s Ash leaning into Eiji, a lazy smile on his face, soaking in the warmth. Sometimes it’s the library, kicking gently at each other’s feet underneath the table, only making eye contact when Eiji strikes surprisingly hard - _What the fuck was that for?_ Sometimes it’s sharing a single pair of cheap headphones, listening to one of Eiji’s favorite songs, a Japanese pop hit from the eighties, contagious in its sense of bliss. Sometimes it’s Eiji with that camera of his, capturing Ash in a way they both know won’t last when they are not alone - half-asleep at the kitchen counter, cradling a cup of coffee, looking up at the lens, bizarrely vulnerable - _Did you take it already?_ And sometimes it’s Ash, sitting like this, glowing, staring at Eiji’s back, thinking that he could stare at his back all day, just like this, just the two of them - how he could protect him, then, and his heart wouldn’t have to break.

*

When he wakes, light is pouring through the window and he can hear the clatter of dishes in the kitchen. Then, after some time, footsteps.

"I made you coffee," says Eiji, one hand on the doorway. "Come on out."

"All right." For a moment, he doesn’t move, trapped by a small sense of doom.

Although it doesn't seem that Eiji can feel it. To Eiji, none of this commotion - about the glowing, and the hearts breaking, and whether Ash should have kissed him back - seems to matter at all. He comes forward, smiling, takes Ash's hands in his own and pulls him up. For a second Ash thinks he doesn’t deserve it. Then, for a second, he thinks it is like flight.


End file.
